To make Vietnamese culture and people closer and attractive to international friends
WVR - The image of Vietnam's country, culture, and people is becoming closer and more attractive to international friends, helping draw more resources for developing the country.
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| To make Vietnamese culture and people closer and attractive to international friends: Associate Professor, Dr. Bui Hoai Son said that the image of Vietnam's country, culture, and people is becoming increasingly closer and more attractive to international friends. (Photo: Quochoi) |
Promoting Vietnamese culture to the world is of great importance in many aspects, especially in spreading soft power, building bravery and confidence for Vietnamese culture and people, at the same time, forming brands for Vietnamese cultural and artistic products as well as supporting the country's socio-economic development. Therefore, in recent years, through many Party National Congresses, in many different resolutions and documents, promoting Vietnamese culture has become one of the important tasks.
Specifically, in the Cultural Diplomacy Strategy until 2030, cultural promotion is one of the main contents. Accordingly, we have determined: "Promoting cultural values, the image of the country and people of Vietnam, with a focus on spreading values, ideas, and perspectives on human life, the progressive and noble worldview of the Vietnamese people, especially through the image and ideological values of President Ho Chi Minh and great people honoured by UNESCO; Pay attention to developing the cultural industry, expanding markets for Vietnamese goods, products and services; building Vietnam into an attractive address for international cultural exchanges and promoting local branding."
I think that the promotion of Vietnamese culture abroad also faces certain difficulties and barriers. First of all, I see the great efforts of ministries, branches and localities in strengthening cultural promotion activities. These promotional activities, through many paths as well as diplomatic channels, at various domestical and international events, try to make the image of the country and people of Vietnam become closer and more attractive to international friends, thus drawing more resources to develop the country.
However, compared to the country's expectations and cultural potential, we need to do further to make cultural promotion more effective and practical. In my opinion, the biggest difficulty is still resources. We are lacking financial, physical and human resources for this kind of activities.
Regarding finance, the current budget allocation mechanism causes many difficulties for organizing cultural promotion activities, from large scale activities such as the World Expo to small scale activities such as arranging exchange visits.
The channel for mobilizing external resources also faces difficulties due to problems with public-private cooperation mechanisms or the issues of management and use of public assets.
Regarding facilities, despite many efforts, cultural and sports institutions are hardly qualified to organize major events in Vietnam. Therefore, Vietnam could not become a priority and ideal location for major cultural and artistic events of the world. Since then, it has been difficult for us to promote our culture right in our own country.
Not to mention, we are still lack of facilities to promote Vietnamese culture and tourism abroad. Despite setting targets and many years of striving, nowaday, we only have Vietnamese Cultural Centers in France and Laos. Having the tourism promotion center abroad is even more difficult.
Meanwhile, human resources are the most important resources. Therefore, we must also frankly recognize that the staff working on cultural promotion of ministries, branches and localities has yet met the requirements of this important tasks. Our remuneration policy is not really good, so we cannot attract many good people to participate in promotional activities.
Those are the biggest difficulties besides the lack of coordination of promotional plans, or issues related to mechanisms and policies. Overcoming these difficulties, I believe that our cultural promotion work will achieve results, helping the country further develop.
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| Performances of Hue’s traditional ao dai at the Vietnam National Village for Ethnic Culture and Tourism in Hanoi in April 2021. (Photo: Nhan Dan newspaper) |
Reflecting on cultural promotion based on time-honoured traditional values of the Outline on Vietnamese Culture, we realize that the implementation of principles such as nationalization, popularization, and scientificization has been "lighting the way for the nation", creating synergy for the nation. In the resistance war for national independence, culture had become an important force to form spiritual strength for the country, helping us overcome all difficulties and challenges, "leveling" all differences economically and militarily with ASEAN countries and other countries in the world.
In the context of carrying out the process of innovation and international integration, the work of building an advanced Vietnamese culture rich in national identity is a valuable inheritance of the Outline on Vietnamese Culture, when the advance can be expressed with scientific principles, imbued with national identity, adding value to national principles in the Outline on Vietnamese Culture. Protecting national identity has been aligned to expanding international exchanges and selectively absorbing the good things and advances in the cultures of other nations.
In that process, promoting national culture is carried out through cultural diplomacy activities and developing cultural industries.Therefore, let culture affirm national sovereignty and national values, let the new vitality of culture create goals and motivation for the sustainable development of the country.
* Dr. Bui Hoai Son is a Standing Member of National Assembly’s Culture and Education Committee, Former Director of Vietnam National Institute of Culture and Arts Studies.
